One popular and widely practiced form of artistic expression is painting. In its conventional form, painting involves applying either oil or acrylic based paints to a fiat surface, typically a stretched canvas, using a brush. Oil and acrylic paints are packaged and sold to artists in collapsible tubes with screw-on tops. An artist squeezes paint from the tube and onto a palette, where it may be mixed with other paints before applying it. Typically, a number of paint colors are placed on a palette, creating a palette of colors, when preparing to paint. It is often advantageous or necessary to pre-mix an amount of paint sufficient to cover a portion of a canvas being worked on. However, an artist may stop work on this portion of the canvas for a period of between several hours to several weeks. All paints begin drying after leaving the tube. Consequently, much of the pre-mixed paint will likely dry on the palette before being used. It has bccn estimated that between twenty-five and forty percent of paint that is purchased by an average or typical artist or painter is lost due to drying.
There are several prior art attempts that attempt to solve this problem. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,728,157, Guthrie discloses an "artist's kit" that includes a pallet that may be folded in half and placed within a zippered pouch along with paints and brushes. Paints may remain on the palette. An "anti-skinning" fluid, which is either polyhydric alcohol or tripentaerythritol, is sprayed into the pouch before closing. The anti-skinning fluid vaporizes and, purportedly, slows drying of paints. However, too much of the fluid in the pouch will cause paints on the palette to run. Consequently, small amounts of the anti-skinning fluid must be applied repeatedly to maintain adequate amounts of vapor within the enclosure. Furthermore, these anti-skinning agents chemically react with paint, potentially harming the paint. They are also combustible and give off noxious odors. Many artists today also prefer to use throw-away paper palettes rather than wood or plastic palettes which must be cleaned. Paper palettes are sold in tablets which cannot easily be folded and stuffed into a pouch.
Maxwell, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,666, discloses an enclosure having a rectangular, box-shaped bottom large enough to receive an unfolded, throw-away palette. A plastic lid seals against the bottom and includes projections which extend downward for assisting in holding the palette with paint in place within the enclosure. However, the seal of Maxwell's enclosure requires application of petroleum jelly in a groove on the lid and tends not be effective in preventing drying of paint on the palette.
Artist's paints are expensive. It is, for example, not uncommon for art students to spend $1,500 or more a year on paints for classes. Furthermore, time which can otherwise be used for creative activity or, in the case of students, teaching is lost when paints must be freshly mixed at the beginning of each painting session. Since the pouch of Guthrie and the enclosure of Maxwell have several disadvantages, there remains a need for a better device for preserving artist's paints on a palette.